God Does Not Need Your Mud Pies

I haven’t blogged in forever. I guess the bug left me.

Life continues to improve. All sorts of stuff is happening.

As regular readers know, I belong to a prayer group at church. Most of us are not too pleased with the lack of Holy Spirit moves in the main services, and our church has hosted some preachers who left us disappointed and annoyed. Our answer has been to increase prayer in tongues and listen to the Holy Spirit.

Things keep ramping up. More people are joining the fight. More people are coming to the group and telling us how prayer in tongues has changed them. They’re getting revelation from God. They understand the Bible better. Good things are happening to them. Their lives seem guided. It’s exactly what I knew would happen, if they would listen.

We’re even seeing it in services. Our pastor has been allowing the congregation to spend times praying in tongues, as a body. That’s phenomenal. It proves God is listening, and that the things he has us doing in private are not a waste of time.

A week or so back, someone came in and tried to convince us tongues were not for everyone. He cited 1 Corinthians 12:

4 There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. 5 There are differences of ministries, but the same Lord. 6 And there are diversities of activities, but it is the same God who works all in all. 7 But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all: 8 for to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, to another the word of knowledge through the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healings by the same[b] Spirit, 10 to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another different kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. 11 But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills.

That’s the Bible, all right. But he went beyond the plain meaning of the words. It says God manifests himself through each one as he wills, but it does not say prayer in tongues is not for everyone. The Bible says the gifts belong to the Spirit, not to us, so the Spirit decides when to use which gift, and through whom. That doesn’t mean you can’t exercise all of the gifts, at various points in your life. In all likelihood, Paul was simply reminding us not to be disappointed or impatient because we don’t display all of the gifts equally all the time.

In the New Testament, there is a pattern. Over and over, people receive the baptism with the Holy Spirit. Robert Morris has pointed out that every time–no exceptions–they began to speak in tongues that were unknown to them. And the scriptures (both testaments) are loaded with references to tongues. Many of the references are symbolic. Example: instead of saying, “You will pray in an unknown language,” Jesus said he would give us “living water.” Concerning singing in tongues, the Psalms say the kings of the earth (his sons and daughters) will sing in the way God shows (Psalm 138), and that God will put a new song in our mouths, “even praise unto the Lord” (Psalm 138).

The name “Beersheba” is a prophetic reference to tongues. The “sheba” part comes from the Hebrew word for “oath” or “seven.” We know from the Revelation and from the shape of the lamp in the Holy of Holies that seven is the number of the Holy Spirit. The “beer” part means “well.” At Beersheba, Abraham found water provided by God, in the middle of the desert, because he trusted God. The earth is a desert, and tongues are the living water, provided freely by our creator. Beersheba was a place where God spoke to people repeatedly, in revelations, as the Holy Spirit reveals himself through his gifts.

That’s just one example.

In the New Testament, we are repeatedly encouraged to pray “in the Spirit,” which means “in tongues.” If you read the passage in Ephesians about the “armor of God,” you should not ignore the last part, which makes it clear that prayer in tongues is the way to go about putting on the armor: “praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints (Eph. 6:18). And what about the passage in Romans which says things work out for our good? Look at the whole thing. It’s about people who have been baptized with the Spirit, and who pray in tongues.

Rom 8:22-30
22 We know that until now, the whole creation has been groaning as with the pains of childbirth; 23 and not only it, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we continue waiting eagerly to be made sons — that is, to have our whole bodies redeemed and set free. 24 It was in this hope that we were saved. But if we see what we hope for, it isn’t hope — after all, who hopes for what he already sees? 25 But if we continue hoping for something we don’t see, then we still wait eagerly for it, with perseverance.

26 Similarly, the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we don’t know how to pray the way we should. But the Spirit himself pleads on our behalf with groanings too deep for words; 27 and the one who searches hearts knows exactly what the Spirit is thinking, because his pleadings for God’s people accord with God’s will. 28 Furthermore, we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called in accordance with his purpose; 29 because those whom he knew in advance, he also determined in advance would be conformed to the pattern of his Son, so that he might be the firstborn among many brothers; 30 and those whom he thus determined in advance, he also called; and those whom he called, he also caused to be considered righteous; and those whom he caused to be considered righteous he also glorified! “(CJB).

I can testify about this, personally, and I can tell you my friends will agree with me, because they’ve been there, too: when you pray in tongues a lot, God guides you like GPS. He may not take you where you think you should go, but he will put you where you should be, and things will work out in ways that amaze you, over and over. One tongues proponent–Glenn Arekion–puts it this way: when you pray in tongues, the Spirit prophesies about your life. He tells what will happen. He arranges your future. Call it prophecy or intercession or what you will; it happens.

I believe that when John spoke of Spirits denying or admitting that Jesus came “in the flesh,” he was referring not to the initial incarnation of Jesus, but to his reincarnation in us, through the baptism with the Holy Spirit. Nearly everyone, atheists and Satanists included, admits Jesus lived as a man, so surely this can’t be the admission Job was talking about. If a Satanist says Jesus lived as a man, does that mean the Spirit of God is in him? Come on.

The indwelling of Jesus through the Holy Spirit (Jesus coming in our flesh) is what the Spirit of Antichrist fears, and it’s what he fights the hardest. It makes us powerful, as Jesus himself said it would. It replicates Jesus here on the earth, producing little copies of him to afflict Satan’s kingdom. It’s like Agent Smith in Matrix Revolutions.

Satan doesn’t like it when we receive salvation but remain powerless. But he really hates it when we get salvation in the next life AND power in this life. So the Spirit of Antichrist rises up in people who are not baptized with the Spirit, and it leads them to criticize prayer in tongues. This is probably what Jesus was referring to when he said you could not be pardoned for “speaking against” the Holy Spirit (Matthew 12).

The guy who tried to tell us tongues were not for everyone made it clear he thought we were exalting ourselves because we had the gift. He said it didn’t make us “better Christians” than him. I think that reveals the motivation that led him. He projected pride onto us. This is probably what Cain did to Abel.

He could not have been more wrong. When you pray in tongues and listen to the Holy Spirit, you’re not exalting yourself. You’re humbling yourself. You’re telling God you’re a welfare case. You’re saying you can’t do what he wants without his help at every step. You’re admitting you have virtually no power and no righteousness of your own.

We never knew he didn’t pray in tongues until he told us. He had given us the impression that he had the gift. I don’t know how we could be accused of thinking we were better than he was, when we thought he was just like us.

I do not believe God gives tongues to special righteous people. I believe he gives them to people who have faith and who will submit. After all, from God’s point of view, we are all on the same level. Jeffrey Dahmer and Billy Graham…both so far from God’s righteousness, they might as well be the same person. It’s like the Tower of Babel. It looked like a big deal from earth, but from heaven, it looked like a pimple. No more impressive than an outhouse or a bordello. So the idea that God only gives tongues to super-good people is crazy. One of the purposes of tongues is to help us become good, through God’s charity. Why give it to people who are already good? If you’re so great you can keep the law on your own, go for it, but you have to do it perfectly. The rest of us need to have the law written on our hearts.

I think some people who take a long time to receive tongues may be suffering from an insidious type of pride. They feel bad about what they are (as we all do), they feel they have to work and suffer to make it up to God, and they don’t feel entitled to his help. So they can’t let go and let him speak through them. “Never mind, God. I don’t deserve you. Let me do this for you.” The problem is that no one ever climbed up to heaven. You have to be carried. If you think you can do things for yourself, you may think you’re penitent or unselfish, but in reality, you’re proud. You believe you can do things only God can do, and you think you can do it your own way. That’s my best guess. You have to be willing to let go, take a chance on making a fool of yourself, and let your lips start moving.

I ask God for things constantly. “Help me open the refrigerator door. Help me turn on the TV. Help me shave. Help me breathe.” God WANTS us to be dependent, because a dependent person can’t have pride. God is not busy. He is not offended when you ask him for things. The thing that offends him is the illusion of self-sufficiency. Read the Bible; see how Saul got cursed. Look what happened to the Levites who brought strange fire to the altar. What was the Tower of Babel about? Man doing it for himself.

God doesn’t want your help, believe me. He will not owe you. You are to owe him.

I knew this kind of attack would come; it always does. It succeeded in removing the power of the Holy Spirit from the church about 1800 years ago. It will fail this time, but it’s still going to be with us. Satan is going to use sincere Christians who think they are doing God’s will, to stop the spread of the power of the Holy Spirit. But when he cuts off one of Jesus’s fingers, three more will grow in its place. It doesn’t depend on us; it depends on the God who empowers us. We are disposable. We are like seeds. Plant us, and more of us grow.

Here’s something really weird. Surely you know religious Jews don’t buy ANY of this. They are extremely hostile to Jesus, at least in private, so it would be crazy to expect them to believe in the gifts of the Spirit. But Perry Stone met one who had a surprising attitude. His name was Yehuda Getz, and he was an Orthodox rabbi who lived in Jerusalem. Did he have a good reputation among religious Jews? I have no idea. For all I know, he was a nut case. But one day Perry Stone mentioned tongues to him, and he said, “Ah, yes. The language of God.”

Stone asked him to explain, and he said that on Yom Kippur, when the high priest entered the Holy of Holies, the priest would speak directly to God in an unknown language. I had never heard of this before. I still don’t know what to make of it. I have never seen anything in the Old Testament which refers to tongues literally. Metaphorically, sure. But not literally.

My cup runs over. I don’t have time to talk of all the things I’ve seen lately. If you want to live this life, you can’t experience it through me. Get ahold of it for yourself. You don’t need me.